#thank the customer service workers

[ravenz-den]

sooo you doing anything for thanksgiving..?

me:

[equalseleventhirds]

workin a little on my urban fantasy workplace comedy thing i'm writing, and i decided early on that it had to be masquerade-less, all the weird fantasy and horror and stuff known etc

and like i was stuck on stuff for a while but something is clicked in my head when i stopped thinking things like, 'how has the government legislated about vampires, how are werewolves treated in society, do ghosts have personhood rights' and started thinking things like 'ok, a bus has eaten some people. what absolutely useless statement has local government put out? in what ways do ppl complain about this the way they complain about unfilled potholes?'

and rly that is. helping.

there's plenty of stuff out there that does the extended racism metaphor, big level etc etc. i gotta get smaller and weirder or this story will never get off the ground.

[adharastarlight]

as a retail worker, i have an amazing tip for everyone at christmas!!! stay home! please! please

[deepinifhell]

Today is, unfortunately, the Big Football. Please think good thoughts for the 10 hour work day I am scheduled for.

[every-sanji]

if sanji wasn't a professional cook, what occupation do you think would suit him best?

Oh this is very interesting. Given that as a cook he was also a server at the Baratie he probably could have ended up somewhere else in the service industry and all of us fast food and retail workers can continue to live vicariously through him telling off customers.

Getting away from that though since it is pretty connected to cook, I could see him being a childcare worker of some sort too? I think he'd probably get along well with kids despite the horrors and everything

[lovebugcody]

you can tell i'm ready to leave my job completely because now whenever i mention our offsite store-room being a mess, i say "it's a shitshow, but not my circus not my monkeys"

in my head i've already quit and the problem with organisation is not mine to worry about

[facts-i-just-made-up]

Not A Joke, Not Unreality:

A company called Quantum Fiber (under Century Link) recently set up my home town for fiber optic internet. I got them a month ago and aside from a few outages it was decent.

Last week, it went out. They sent me a super specific time it would be back-

They failed to make it and sent another, minutes later.

And another when that failed.

And over the week, more and more.

I called and they just read me the same email out loud. They offered no escalation or resources. Every time, they fail. I have not had internet for my house in a week, and this morning I got this one-

I looked into other people having the same problem and found this-

Edit forgot link

That's not something called a "766" line, that's them fucking up my city 766 times. This company is fucking shit, and I'm sick of this. I've filed an FCC complaint but those take a month to even get a reply.

So I'm hoping my 173,365 followers can help make this show of their ineptitude and callousness go viral. Please.

They are in a time of massive expansion into many new states and cities. I am asking anyone so inclined with a few minutes to spare to find your town or state's government information technology office or liaison, or just a local government representative of any kind, and write them a quick note stating that this company destroys town utilities and offers absolute frustrating failures of service in return.

If you have Quantum Fiber and have been similarly failed by them, please file an FCC complaint. You might at least get a free month out of it.

If you work with a news source or popular blog, please boost this however you can.

If you are on any app on which they are present, please feel free to write or tag them and let them know they have failed their customers and cities they work with.

Please do not engage in threats or harassment of any form. Keep this legal, civil, and proper so that it can create a legal basis and record of good citizen interaction on the part of this company's victims. I am asking for help in a grassroots campaign, not a violent or prank-filled heap that just gets people in trouble. AND DO NOT FOR ANY REASON EVER PESTER THE WORKERS, PHONE REPS AND TECHNICIANS THEY HAVE OUT THERE. This is the corporation's fault, not the poor folks they employ who they likely try to make take the backlash.

If you have any other ideas on how to hold a mega-corp responsible for the shit they put their customers through, please comment and recommend. I am sick of this shit. I know there are worse things happening and even worse companies doing horrid things right now. But maybe this one is new/small enough that a viral campaign can kick them where it hurts and get them to act more responsibly to their customers and safely to the places they work.

Please help if you have time. Please spread this in the hopes they see it and get off their butts and fix their horrible shit. Any random reblog or post on any platform might be the one their investors hear of.

Thank you anyone for anything you can do.

-Ari

[barista-blues]

You should absolutely be tipping on holidays.

[wp100]

i had a customer today who had to wait like a couple minutes to be served. i was changing the bins outside and went back in and served one customer before her.

she was like 'sorry (or thank you? i can't remember) for making me wait' with such attitude. my fucking god if you cannot wait a couple minutes to be served there is something very wrong with you. just saying.

[35gofbeansprouts]

💭.

[ozzgin]

We have yandere school,, but what about yan! Restaurant? 👀

You've only ever visited this particular restaurant once, but the food was just so good that you can't help but come back from time to time! And, oh.. The workers and manager there can't help but favor you a lot more than the rest ♡

I'm not sure if you meant it in the sense that the restaurant is a regular, normal business, and the staff became obsessed with you, or if the restaurant is quite literally advertised as a yandere service. I went for the latter, for the memes. Content: gender neutral reader, parody?, horde of (adult) yanderes

Yandere!Restaurant provides you with an extensive list of employees to choose from. From grey-haired and soft-spoken, to brash and youthful; the restaurant guarantees you will find your matching server within their impressive catalog.

Alright, where is the menu? Most customers are indeed taken aback when presented with a leather-bound book of blank pages. The gesture is quickly followed by a second, much thinner folder: a questionnaire, and an agreement to be stalked.

You see, Yandere!Restaurant has a particular modus operandi - you provide them with the basics: your full name and date of birth. Everything else will be uncovered by the yandere themselves. Once they have found you, the true serving process begins.

The first part is always the longest, hence their recommendation to book months in advance if you're a new customer. It's the research phase. Your chosen server will follow you around and gather all the needed information.

"No, thank you, it's too sweet for me", you tell a friend offering you some of their snack. From within the shadows, a cloaked figure scribbles down furiously.

The second and final phase is your usual dining experience. You are seated at the table and presented with your dishes. They have been carefully curated to match your taste in that very moment. Maybe you'd recently hoped you could eat your childhood favorite again. Maybe you'd seen a social media post about a trending dessert, and wished to try it out yourself. No matter the reason, know that it has been skillfully uncovered by your loyal server.

"This is..."

You gasp quietly and cover your mouth with a napkin. The taste is exquisite, filling you with a wave of nostalgia. How did they know? This is exactly what you wanted.

Why, of course. It was made with utmost love and attention. Won't you visit them again, (Y/N)?

[More Yandere Scenarios]

[fairyofshampgyu]

Super shy !

genre: smut, baker au, college au, crack

Pairing: shy loser virgin bakery worker ! soobin x college customer ! reader

Warnings: sub soobin, dom reader, clubbing, alcohol, loss of virginity, riding, hand job, titty groping (can’t be a Soobin smut without him being obsessed with boobies be fr), premature ejaculation,

word count: 2.9k

As soon as you stepped into the newly established campus bakery, walking up to the counter and observing all the pastries, contemplating for a rather long time before you end up deciding on what you’d usually order anyway, Soobin couldn’t help feeling like his world got totally turned upside down. The sight of you rendering him completely speechless and unable to even think.

Time seemingly going by so slow like in the kdramas as your shiny hair majestically blows in the non existent wind inside, smile brightening up the entire bakery. He could practically see the roses blooming around your face like in the mangas. Was this love at first sight?!

Realistically, no.

But were you incredibly attractive to him and a breath of fresh air to the moody, stressed out college students that purchase a single coffee and stay for hours completing assignments with their backs concerningly hunched over? Hell yes.

And unfortunately for Soobin, he does not do well with pretty people. At all. Not realising you had even ordered, too in awe and preoccupied with taking in all your features until he’s snapped back to reality with the clearing of your throat and he can already feel his cheeks burning up horribly fast. Oh god. He really, really hopes it’s not evident right now.

“S-sorry…What did you say?” He begins apologising profusely to you, too embarrassed to even look you in the eyes, staring off more to the side. This was definitely not his best customer service.

With a chuckle, you brush it off and state your order again, “I said could I have the strawberry swirl cheesecake please?” If Soobin could look at himself in third person, he would so be face palming right now. Or better yet, maybe he could just go up and like, punch himself straight up or something for acting like such a loser.

“Ah right... That’s ₩7500. Cash or card?”

You pay with cash and Soobin, very nervously, fumbles around to garner the right amount of change to hand you, though doing it in the most awkward way possible and his palm makes direct contact with yours as he hands the money, making him blush even more and let out a small obvious gasp at the feeling of your soft hand. Oh my god. Why did he do that?! He really hopes you didn’t find that weird.

You only let out another chuckle, thanking him before you’re leaving the bakery in an elegant manner and Soobin is left to sigh and watch your back disappear. Damn it. He’ll probably never see you again. You were so pretty and so cute, too cute even-

“You’re such a virgin.”

His thoughts about you are abruptly dissipated by his coworker and unfortunately best friend, Choi Beomgyu who gives him the stupidest, most annoying grin he would definitely like to slap off his face right now.

“Just shut up.” Soobin grimaces and rolls his eyes at beomgyu, bringing a batch of freshly baked cookies out of the oven behind him and placing them into the display glass one by one.

"You’re pinker than the strawberry macarons we sell. That's saying something." Beomgyu raises an eyebrow at him with sass.

So does that mean you could see how flustered he was getting then? Oh no! Soobin clears his throat and narrows his eyes at beomgyu anyway. “Am not.”

“Are too! Anyway, all I’m saying is that interaction was painful to watch. You’re really giving pathetic, loser, virgin right now. I cant lie.” Beomgyu attempts to stifle in one of his obnoxious laughs.

Soobin is quick to snap back, "You've only ever slept with one person!"

"S-so!! At least im not a virgin!" Beomgyu’s cheeks also become the equivalent to the strawberry macarons as he scrambles to try and defend himself, brows furrowed and cheeks puffed.

“Well, the concept of a virgin is purely societal anyway. It doesn’t actually matter. It doesn’t mean anything really.” Soobin bitterly replies, continuing to work whilst his counterpart does completely nothing like most of the time. It's usually soobin that does work, remind him not to agree to beomyu's silly ideas of getting a job together ever again.

Beomgyu scoffs and snickers at this, "Whatever. You’re just saying all that to make yourself feel better because you’re a loser. LMAO"

"I’ll punch you right now."

"Then we'll both be fired~”

A poor customer still awaits at the counter to be served, standing in bewilderment and tiredness. Waiting for the two bakers to finish bickering and sighing as they don’t seem like they’re going to stop anytime soon.

Soobin doesn’t expect to see you again, in complete honesty, he’s almost forgotten you even exist after you never come again. But he’s in luck and more than pleasantly surprised when he hears the bell to the door go ding!, indicating a customer had walked in. He looks up from the cake he was decorating and in comes you looking cuter than the first time he saw you. He tries not to mess up the cake and he stands up straight almost instantly when he sees you, waiting for you to order and trying to remain calm.

You laugh and point at his cute nose when you come up to the counter. “You have like, icing all on your nose.”

“O-oh. I do?” He points at himself and you nod in reply. He feels himself going redder by the minute. He must look so stupid right now! And he urgently brings his sleeve up and tries to wipe the icing off his nose to not make himself look an even more of a complete fool in front of you .

“Ah wait no. Let me do it!” You lean over the counter as you see him struggling and wipe it off the top of his cute bunny like nose instead for him.

And that was the end of soobin. The end.

-

You become a regular at the bakery and soobin becomes a regular of embarrassing the absolute shit out of himself each time he sees you. He really doesn’t think he can top the previous comedic disaster that occurs when you enter, yet he always proves himself wrong, the awkwardness reaching new heights each time. From dropping trays of pastries, spilling drinks, nearly slipping in front of you, giving you a ₩50000 note when it was only ₩5000 change, the list goes on and on. He’s actually surprised he hasn’t lost his job yet.

And there’s also always a disappointed beomgyu shaking his head afterwards ready to make fun of him when Soobin promises to make a move but freezes every time you’re in sight, too much of a pussy.

“I’m calling an intervention.” Beomgyu declares and sighs after the nth time of soobin making absolutely no moves on you whatsoever, “Soobin, my man, my bro, you desperately need to get banged. It’s painful seeing the way you act. Your little crush is not gonna like you with the way you act. That’s it. We’re going clubbing tonight after this shift. No buts.”

“But-”

“I said no buts!”

“You know I hate clubbing.”

“You’ve never even been with me despite my constant pleads.” Beomgyu shakes his head and makes a dramatic pained face at his way.

“So? I know I’ll hate it.”

“You’re such a hater bro.”

“Yes I am. And I take pride in it. I’m a hater of everything.”

Beomgyu just sighs. He was utterly hopeless.

Unfortunately, there was no way Soobin could get out of this because beomgyu was having absolutely none of his protests and excuses and that’s how he ends up finding himself at the club anyway after his shift, sitting off to the side as he watches beomgyu disappear somewhere into the crowd. Soobin sighs as he downs his jack and coke. This was going to be a long fucking night.

-

In the dimly lit club, soobin’s discomfort was palpable, like a fish out of water and you noticed instantly upon arrival. It’s that cute tall baker boy who always serves you! You excitedly make your way and sit next to him, he looked a little lonely. “Hey! You work at that bakery on campus. I go there!”

Soobin’s eyes nearly fall out of his sockets at the sight of you sitting next to him and he nearly chokes on his drink as he splutters on his straw and nods. Act calm, act calm, act calm, act calm. Act cool and mysterious.

It’s you! You’re speaking to him?!

“So…these things not really your scene, huh?”

“Gee. How did you ever notice?” Soobin attempts to smile and joke with dry humour but it executes a little more awkward and nervous than how he would have liked.

You also try to carry on the conversation since this is the first time you’ve got to ever actually talk to the cute boy before. “I’m very intuitive. I can just sense things like that.”

He laughs at that too, feeling a bit more comfortable around you now. “No but yeah, I’d much rather be at home right now sleeping. Can’t say I’m much of an advocate for getting stupidly drunk with sweaty people you don’t even know with terrible rave music and flashing lights that should have an epilepsy warning”

“I get it.” You chuckle at how passionate he gets talking about how much he hates clubbing, frown on his cute face. “So why are you here then?”

“Friend wanted me to. Said I needed to finally get laid or whatever.” Soobin rolls his eyes and sips on his drink again, motioning his head to the direction of beomgyu on the dance floor, clearly drunk off his ass now.

“Oh, you’re a Virgin?”

Soobin’s ears go red when he realises what he said to you. “O-oh um y-yeah I guess…”

“Are you waiting for like marriage or the right person or something?” You question, genuinely surprised. He was tall and very attractive and it was rare for college boys to not hook up every single night these days.

“God no. Just never happened. I don’t really care for things like that. It’s probably overhyped anyway and doesn’t even feel that good. Like porn is highly unrealistic anyway.”

“You think so?” You chuckle at him and he nods, continuing to cutely sip on his drink with his straw. “Well maybe you should to try it out first and see for yourself.” Your words start to become a little flirty as you grow more confident talking with him and also because of the alcohol making you slightly tipsy now. “Sorry, but do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes please.” Soobin’s eyes widen even more at your suggestion and he’s more than happy to get out of here with you especially.

“Umm your friend is a bit….out of it right now.” You watch beomgyu drunk from afar, whipping his long hair back and forth claiming to everyone around he’ll be able to do it fast enough to lift off his feet and fly like a helicopter.

“He’ll be…he’ll be fine I’m sure”

Soobin has no idea what good stuff he must have done in his past life to get to this moment right now, in your room, making out with you, in your bed. Did he mention making out? With you?! The customer he’s been crushing on for months?! Holy, he might hyperventilate right now. It all feels like a dream. Is this real right now?

You cup his cheek and move into his lap, continuing to move your lips against his and soobin’s ears and face are all flushed, breathing loud of enough for you to hear and he looks all nervous and a little shaky.

You stop kissing him but he chases after your lips still and you stroke his cheek, “Are you okay Soobin?”

He’s only able to nod, lips parted and eyes all glazed over. He’s so out of it just from making out with you it’s crazy. But so cute too.

“C-can you…can we…just want…”

“What do you want, baby?” You chuckle and stroke his cheek as he manages to utter some words. The petname only makes his head go even more haywire.

“W-want you…”

“What do you want me to do?” You giggle and coo at him.

He shyly shows you the boner he’s had this entire time. You can’t believe he got a boner just from some kissing. “Can you-will you touch me…please? Need it…” He pleads at you nervously, so red in the face.

“Are you sure?”

He nods his head exceptionally fast and you begin to unbuckle his jeans as he watches you take his flushed and hard dick out, breathing only becoming heavier. Damn, you didn’t think he’d be that big.

You take him into your hands and his mouth his already agape, gasping when you slowly start to stroke him.

You pump his big cock at a steady pace so as not to overwhelm him too much, though twisting and thumbing at the tip occasionally that has him drooling at the corner of his mouth and beads of precum dribbling out heavily from his cock. It’s endearing how far gone he is just at you stroking his dick slow, shy whimpers and other noises eliciting from his mouth.

You unbutton you shirt with your other hand as you continue to pump him and his eyes go crazed at the sight of your tits, you guiding his own big inexperienced hands to grope at them and he does, slumping his head into your neck and shoulder moaning into it and still groping and squeezing at your tits.

With a sudden yelp you feel Soobin’s cum spurt up and leak into your hands, his eyes rolling back as he whimpers continuously from his premature orgasm.

He doesn’t lift his head from your shoulder yet, too embarrassed to face you but he eventually does, eyes still half lidded, trying to catch his breath and he’s hard again. “W-will you fuck me? Please please please. Wanna feel it, wanna feel you, please?” He practically begs, still panting out.

“Are you really sure, Soobin? With me?”

“Yes please! Only want you.”

You study his face for any hesitancy but it’s clear he’s so set on wanting you to fuck him. So you wrap your hands around both his wrists and bring him to lay down on your pillows instead, you still straddling his lap.

When you’ve undressed your lower half, you bring his dick and slide it over your entrance a few times, he moans out loud, hands coming up shyly to cover his face and then you sink down incredibly slowly on his massive length . Soobin’s jaw drops and breath hitches at the feeling of his dick finally in your warm pussy, a strangled moan ripping out of him. He could seriously cum just from being in you right now, but he tries so hard not to or you’ll be disappointed and he doesn’t want to see you disappointed or embarrass himself even more.

“You good, baby?”

“M’ f-fine. Just-Just need a minute.” Soobin shakes out.

You take his hands away from his face and lean down to softly kiss him instead, trying to calm him down and he effuses into your mouth, kissing back passionately with his eyes closed.

“I’m ready now…” He pulls away after a while and looks you in the eyes.

So you start to slowly move, riding him, going up and down on his virgin dick. Soobin’s mouth hangs open in endless moans and gasps and whimpers, face buried into your pillow to the side and his hair all messy now. Whole body flushed and shaking underneath you.

“Better than you thought, baby?” You grunt out, bouncing on top of his cock.

“So much better. O-oh my god, f-fuck…ah!” So maybe sex wasn’t overhyped after all. Because goddamn, you feel so fucking good. Maybe it was just you. But Soobin truly feels like he’s gliding on fluffy clouds right now. All the times he’s touched himself not even coming close to how he feels right now stuffed in your pussy as you fuck him, watching mesmerised as your tits bounce with each movement. He could die here right now in full contentment. Oh how he was so wrong.

It’s not long at all before Soobin can’t hold it anymore. His hips bucking up and breath hitching as a loud strangled mewl tumbles out of his mouth and you feel hot cum fill you up suddenly that makes you still your movements on him. He lets out a long slurred groan and then goes limp beneath you, eyes closing shut and open as he fades from conscious to not every now and then. Is he really that fucked out?

After a while, he finally somewhat recovers and comes back to you from his high, still panting out and chest rising up and down. He looks up at you with a small shy smile on his lips, arm thrown over his forehead.

“You know I literally only go to the bakery because of how cute and silly you are and how you always make a mess of yourself whenever I walk in” You chuckle and admit, drawing shapes into his chest.

“W-wait you knew I liked you?” Soobin asks, shocked and feeling embarrassed again.

You laugh, “Come on, you made it rather obvious.”

Please actually reblog !!!!!! and leave comments !!!! guys 😭 if you like the fic. It’s really appreciated and so nice tysm !<3🙏💕🌷🌷! It’s incredibly discouraging and irriating when fics have such little reblogs ☹️. At least send an anon in the inbox if you don’t want to rb, don’t just like. Feedback is always appreciated it make writers want to actually write :)

A/n: having serious writers block rn but forced myself to write this in practically one sitting (it was so painful) and has not been proof read at all so if it makes no sense I apologise 😭

[xiaq]

Did you ever work in customer service? You give off been-in-the-trenches-and-are-better-for-it vibes.

Hi, this is slightly unhinged, but thank you!!

Now you're going to get the story of how I was offered a job on the spot for the first ever position I ever interviewed for (which was, indeed, customer service).

Okay, so, I'm 15, my birthday is in two days, and HEB (Texas grocery store) is hiring baggers for $7 an hour and cashiers for a whole whopping $10 an hour. Cashiers have to have prior experience OR have to work as a bagger for a year first. But I am full of teenage verve and I want that cashier position. I want it now.

I show up on my motorcycle, so I'm in my "professional" outfit but carrying my helmet when I enter the hiring manager's office, which really sets the tone for how things proceed.

The interviewer is like, "how old are you?" and babyface mcgee me, five foot tall and all of 90lbs says, "Fifteen. But I'm sixteen in two days."

And he's like, "...we can't hire you if you're fifteen."

And I'm like, "bet, but you can get the paperwork started now, yeah?"

And he says, "wait, how did you drive a motorcycle here if you're 15?"

So the first 5 minutes of the interview turn into me showing him my license, explaining DMV rules re 15-yr-olds and permitted engine size for motorcycles and pointing out my bike in the parking lot.

"Okay," he says, clearly trying to rally. "So you have a method of transportation, that's great, but we can't consider you for the cashier job if you don't have experience. We can only consider you as a bagger."

I'm prepared for this. I lay out my most recent report card, as well as copies of the sports and academic awards I've achieved in the last year. I give my "I'm a fast learner, I'm a hard worker, and you'll benefit more from me working as a cashier, interacting with customers, than a bagger" speech. I've been buying groceries at this store my whole life, so I know that cashiers are ranked by how many 'Item of the Week' they manage to hawk at checkout (typically batteries or soda or chips). "I'll be top of the ranking for Item of the week, just you wait."

I think he is reluctantly charmed by my bull-headedness. "Okay,” he says, reaching for the can of coke on his desk. "Fine. Sell this to me, then. Right now."

This man is mid-forties. He has bad handmade artwork hung up on his office wall.

"Do you have kids?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

"Two," he says. "Boy and a girl. The girl is just a year younger than you, actually."

"Ah," I say, "is it getting harder and harder to connect with her? Monosyllabic answers? Spends all her time in her room."

"...yes," he says.

“I was the same,” I say somberly. “Until, one afternoon, my dad came into my room and handed me a Coke.”

I tap my fingers on the Coke in front of me.

“He told me to come share a drink with him while he grilled on the back porch and that once I’d finished my Coke I could crawl, hissing, back to my room, but he wanted company until then. And see, I did, actually, want to spend time with my dad. I just didn’t know how to initiate it, and my teenage hormones made it difficult for me to express that. So I took the Coke and stomped my way outside but once I was there, I drank it slowly. And I answered his questions about school and cheerleading and asked him about work and we planned a weekend father-daughter motorcycle trip into the hill country. And ever since then, every few days, he’ll come to my room and offer me a Coke, and I’ll spend half an hour drinking it in his company.”

I slide the coke across the desk to him. “Might be an approach to try with your daughter, what do you think?”

He catches the Coke automatically. He sighs.

"Yeah, alright," he says. "Cashier job is yours. Come back in two days when you're actually sixteen and we'll get your paperwork sorted out." I worked there for the rest of high school and I was, typically, top of the rankings for selling Items of the Week the entire duration.

Entirely unrelated, I hate coke. I don’t drink soda, and the only beverage my dad has ever shared with me on the back porch is a margarita. But he didn’t need to know that.

[thewritetofreespeech]

First Bite

summary: after the incident at the brothel, Aegon sends his brother a gift to make amends. but who would want an apple after someone has already taken a bite?

tags: aemondxf!reader, fingering, hand job, m!oral, virgin bedding, brothel worker, aemond being kind of a bully but it's just aemond really, references to madam sylvi, mild references to voyeurism.

-------------------------------⚔️--------------------------------

You weren’t sure what you were supposed to be doing. Should you lay down? Sit alluringly amongst the furs? Should you be sitting at all?

It was your first time doing this, which seemed unbelievable for a woman who worked in a brothel. But everyone had to start somewhere, right? It had to be the first time some time. Yours was supposed to be some weeks from now. Madam Sylvi selecting your maiden bid date and starting to pass the word around to her most loyal, valued customers that you would be on the docket soon. The chatter was quite electric. Maiden bids, to be a lady’s first time, were highly sought after. Even in brothels. It had been sometime since the Madam had had one for a new girl; or a girl that was untouched.

Yet, despite the anticipation, the Madam appeared in your room one night and let you know that your services were needed. Next thing you knew you had been dressed in some of your finest attire and whisked away into the night for parts unknown. Coming to realize after your blindfold was removed that you were in the palace.

In the quiet dark you sit patiently. Picking at the sheer fabric of your dress. An odd whisper of cloth that covered yet left nearly all revealed. It was meant to be enticing and did nothing for the chill in the air. Perhaps you could wrap yourself in a blanket quickly. You could look alluring in a blanket, right? Surely blue skin was not appealing at all.

Suddenly, the doors open. The loud bang of the heavy wood startling you as your pulse quickened. The rush of adrenaline warming you up quickly.

A man came into the room as the doors closed behind him. His pace slowing as his gaze landed on you, the stranger in his bed. “How are you?”

“I…I uh…” You forget your own name for a moment as you stare back at the hard, fierce looking face of Aemond Targaryen. You recognize him from his visits to the Madam. Suddenly recognizing the gravity of the situation of her sending you here and what personal request might have had you brought to him.

Quickly, you remember your name and give it to him. Along with a note the Madam had given you before your departure.

The prince studied you for a moment with his single sharp eye, before he stepped forward quick to snatch the note from your hand and read it. “A gift from my brother.” He summarized with a sneer. “An apology. He sent you to me?”

“I…I don’t know…” Truly, you did not know until this moment under what circumstances brought  you here.

There was a sharp, quick sound of heavy boots across the floor, and suddenly your face was in Aemond’s large hand. Gripping it hard as he turned it up towards him. “And I am supposed to be impressed with this? Thrown his scraps and say thank you.” His fingers dig into your cheek hard enough to cause tears to prick at your eyes. “Who would want an apple after someone has already taken a bite?”

“N-No on has taken a bite, your grace.” Your words are muddled through the forced pucker of your lips, but the prince seemed to understand enough to let you go. You look up at him cautiously before explaining further. “Madam Sylvi selected me specifically for that reason, your grace.”

Aemond examined you again. Seeming to look for any hesitation or tick of a lie. “She did, did she?” You nod your head fervently. “And no one has touched you?” You shook your head.

He examined you again. This time more than just your face as he looked you up and down. His face was placid. His expression hard to read as you were taught because he barely had any. “Alright.” He finally said. “Turn around.”

You blink in confusion but then slowly turn your back on the prince. You stare at the intricate design of the headboard in the dark as you hear the rustle of clothing & buckles behind you. The bed shifts. You force yourself to stay put and cautiously to look over your shoulder to see what was going on. Stiff and frightened, as if looking back might turn you into a stone.

It does not, however, and the prince is now sitting beside you in the bed. His back against the headboard and pillows. His eye patch gone to reveal his sapphire catching the low light in the dark. Naked. “You are untouched but not untrained, I take it?” You nod again slowly. “Well then, get to work.”

You gulp softly and slowly crawl over to the prince’s side of the bed. Aemond was correct. You were untouched but not untrained. Madam Sylvi would not send her girls out into the world unprepared. Their safety and her reputation depended on client satisfaction. You had been trained in all manner of ways to please a man. Conversation, music, and of course your body. Every man is different, she told you once, what they need can change as quick as the wind blows. You must be prepared, she said.

As you get closer, the prince parted his legs, and you can tell what he needs now. Carefully you reach out to grasp him. Shy and tentative. His cock was limp but stirring at the touch of your hand. It was warmer than the marble phalluses you had to practice on. More malleable too. “You really are untouched, aren’t you?”

You turn to look at the prince at his question, that was not really a question, and blush in shame. “Am I…not doing it right?”

“No.” Disappointment filled you at his harsh criticism. “Your hand is clumsy, and too soft.” The prince sighed through his nose and pushed his hair back. “Try your mouth.”

Your blush deepened and eyes went a little wide at the blunt request. But you had been trained for this. You should feel lucky that he even asked instead of just shoving your head down there like some clients did with the girls.

Grasping the partially aroused shaft at the base you adjusted yourself down until you were eye to eye with it. The first cock you would have in your mouth. You gulp again and carefully flick out your tongue to lick the tip. Nothing happened. You do it again and again, nothing changes. So you wrap your lips around it fully and give it a suckle.

“You’re clumsy at this too.” Aemond criticized again by the time you fit most of it in your mouth. “You probably can’t even take all of me. And you don’t even know what to do with your teeth.” You whimper pathetically. Feeling ashamed and embarrassed. “What manner of whore will you make if you can’t even do this?”

You pulled back from the prince’s member. All wet and breathy. Not nearly as demure as the other girls made it look. “Do you wish me to stop…your grace?”

He looked at you for a long moment. His head lulling to the side to look at you with his good eye. “I didn’t say that.”

There was a flutter in your chest and stomach. Something that shouldn’t be there for a woman whose manner of profession this is, but you couldn’t help it. You lower your mouth back down on his member and get to work again. “You need practice.” The prince told you. His hand reaching out to brush the hair from your face. Pushing it to the side so he could get a better view. “But you’re not…terrible.” The small hitch in his breath as he spoke filled you with glee. Almost as much as the praise.

Joining your hand with your mouth you continue to work over the prince’s cock. It was incredibly hard now. Much like the marble you had practiced with. You taste salt and musk on your tongue, which you have been told is a sign a man is near climax, and you weren’t sure what to do. Were you supposed to pull back? Just use your hand to keep going. Should you ask?

It was a moot point as not long after the hint of salt hit your tongue the full wave burst against it. Your mouth quickly overloaded with cock and cum. It caught you by surprise. You weren’t sure what to do, so you just swallowed.

“Did you swallow that?” The prince asked as you pulled away from his cock. Wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

“Well…it seemed rude to spit it out, your grace.” Aemond scoffed at your bashful honesty but smirked.

“Lie down.” You do as you are told, and the prince came over to your side of the bed now. Looming over you in the dark. “Spread your legs.” You do as you are told again. The sheer fabric of your dress falling between them before Aemond pushed it aside and exposed your apex. “Sylvi taught me a few things as well.” Your breath caught and back arched a little as his fingers brushed against you. Soft at first. Then one long, thin digit sliding in.

“You really are untouched, aren’t you?” The prince seemed surprised as his finger worked inside you. “You can lie about your skills and be a poor actor, but you cannot lie about this.” You whine as another finger slid inside you to stretch.

“I…I wouldn’t lie your grace…”

Aemond scoffed. “Please. Your profession is lying.” You whimper and squirm as his thumb brushed against the bundle at the top of your sex. “But you cannot lie to me.”

His fingers continued to please you. The wet slick of your sex running out. Your breath quickening. Your nipples hard and pointed against the sheer fabric. You dare not look at the prince as your eyes twisted shut in pleasure. “Spread your legs wider.”

You force your eyes open. Looking at the prince and his hard body between your knees. The terrifying hard lines softening in your mind at the warm feelings swirling in your body to think of alabaster in the light. You shift your legs further apart and Aemond slid further into them. “Don’t be afraid.” He told you. You weren’t sure why. Maybe because so many people were afraid of him.

The head of his cock kiss your entrance, then pushed in past your opening. It hurt, but Madam Sylvi had prepared you for this. It hurt much less than you expected since Aemond had opened you; a blessing most women at their first did not receive. Still his member was much larger than his fingers and there was a burning stretch as he entered you fully.

“You’re a woman now.” The prince told you once he was fully seated in your cunny. “How does it feel?”

“G-Good…” Men liked to hear that it felt good.

“Liar.”

The prince pulled back and thrust into you. You yip at the pain of the movement, but it continues. A burning pain but not entirely unpleasant. The longer it goes on the less of the pain there was. You grip on to Aemond’s shoulder and try to roll your hips back against him. It was clumsy, like the rest of your practice, but he at least groans. “How does it feel now?”

“Good…” You weren’t lying this time or playing it up for his benefit. “Good your grace.”

“Good.”

He kissed you, which was not something you were supposed to do. Kissing was for lovers. Brothels were for sex. That was what you were told. But when a prince wants to kiss you, you have to abide, right? What the client wants after all….

You let go of Aemond lips with a moan as you felt his fingers on your nub again. “Have you ever cum before?”

“Y-Yes…mhm!” Part of your training was to be versed in your own pleasure. Though you were untouched there were other ways you could make money for the brothel. Self-pleasure shows were quite popular with some men. Eager to watch and pleasure themselves with their own hands.

“Has a man ever made you cum?”

“N-No.”

“Then I will be your first for that as well.”

His cock and fingers continue to ravage your sex. Overwhelming you with pleasure. Your writhe and buck against Aemond despite yourself. Awash in ecstasy before the seas finally crash on your body as you tremble violently. “My prince!”

There was a grunt from Aemond before his hips finally stopped. In your fog you feel something warm & wet spill out of you onto the fine bedding. His seed inside you. Would you get pregnant? You heard there were girls in the past who his brother had ruined this way. That they were carried off to parts unknown with their Waters. You were suddenly afraid. Would that happen to you?

“Do you know how you are getting back?” Aemond suddenly asked you.

Your thoughts return to the present and you realize that you are done. The prince sat with his legs off the side of the bed with his back partially towards you. His good eye on the opposite side.

You nod but realize he can’t see you. “Yes, your grace. I do.” There was a panel outside the hall you were to return to. Your escort was to be waiting there for you to take you back to the Streets of Silk and back home to Madam Sylvi.

The prince gave a grunt and sat there for a moment before he stood. “See to it that you are gone when I return.” He then walked naked into another room through another hidden panel, and you were alone again. The room suddenly felt colder than it had before all this.

Gathering yourself, you come off the bed with a little hop and wince at the pain between your legs. Nothing you couldn’t manage but noticeable. You then make your way back towards the secret panel, let yourself be blindfolded, and escorted home. When the blindfold was removed you were back in the warm low light of the brothel with the Madam standing there in front of you.

“How was it my dear?” She asked as she handed you a warm cup.

“It was…fine.” You tell her. Taking the cup and drinking it.

“Good girl. Discretion is the better part of our service.” She told you. “Now, drink your Tea and get a bath. You will have the morrow to rest and prepare. You will be on the docket come six suns pass.”

As you looked into your tea cup you now realized this was your life. Taking men into your service. Taking men into your body. You knew that before you came here but it all seemed so real now. You felt overwhelmed. You felt you might cry.

“Madam.”

The lady in question turned when a new man appearance in their enclave. Dressed as a pauper but doing a poor job of it. He handed the Madam a note and then left as quickly as he had appeared.

Madam Sylvi read the note, scoffed, and then seemed a little miffed as she turned to you. “Well, it seems your training was not all for naught.” She told you. “Prince Aemond has requested that you be his private paramour moving forward. How nice.”

“Private?”

“It means you will be the highest paid, least working woman in my employee, girl.” The Madam clipped and crumpled the note before throwing it into the fire. “Just don’t forget who got you here.” She then left with a flourish of her cloaks. Leaving you alone with your tea and a bath and presumably to get some rest.

You just stood there dumbfounded.

You were to be Aemond’s private paramour now? All of a sudden? The only one you knew him to frequent was the Madam herself, hence her ire. You grip your teacup and down the rest of it fully. While your stomach still had the nerve.

A tenday later you were dressed in another fine, sheer garment, waiting in a private room of the brothel when the prince arrived. “I’ve come to further your training.” He said as he took off his belt. “Let’s get started.”

[lackinggravitas]

i love the headcanon that stan and ford live to be stupid old like

dipper’s 50 years old and looking into retirement plans for the future while stan swings his walker at people in the background and tries to get a veteran discount out of customer service workers

ford still had his heart attack at like 92 or whatever but he miraculously lives and goes on to be like. 105 or some shit and still swinging. they have to be pulled off that boat and into assisted living with a crowbar and a LOT of guilt tripping from mabel and dipper.

imo either stan would def die first but only by like a few months, ford would die of ‘natural causes’ (stopped taking his heart medication after stan died) OR they would live to be stupid old thanks to ford’s freaky alien medicine and tech and sail away one day, disappearing mysteriously into the sunset never to be seen again like fucking cryptids. legend has it if you listen close on the open sea you can still hear them fighting over the last bagel in the box

[mostlysignssomeportents]

“The Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets”

This week only, Barnes and Noble is offering 25% off pre-orders of my forthcoming novel Picks and Shovels. ENDS TODAY!.

While we truly live in an age of ascendant monsters who have hijacked our country, our economy, and our imaginations, there is one consolation: the small cohort of brilliant, driven writers who have these monsters' number, and will share it with us. Writers like Maureen Tkacik:

https://prospect.org/topics/maureen-tkacik/

Journalists like Wired's Vittoria Elliott, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman are absolutely crushing it when it comes to Musk's DOGE coup:

https://www.wired.com/author/vittoria-elliott/

And Nathan Tankus is doing incredible work all on his own, just blasting out scoop after scoop:

https://www.crisesnotes.com/

But for me, it was Tkacik – as usual – in the pages of The American Prospect who pulled it all together in a way that finally made it make sense, transforming the blitzkreig Muskian chaos into a recognizable playbook. While most of the coverage of Musk's wrecking crew has focused on the broccoli-haired Gen Z brownshirts who are wilding through the server rooms at giant, critical government agencies, Tkacik homes in on their boss, Tom Krause, whom she memorably dubs "the Fagin figure leading Elon Musk’s merry band of pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" (I told you she was a great writer!):

https://prospect.org/power/2025-02-06-private-equity-hatchet-man-leading-lost-boys-of-doge/

Krause is a private equity looter. He's the guy who basically invented the playbook for PE takeovers of large tech companies, from Broadcom to Citrix to VMWare, converting their businesses from selling things to renting them out, loading them up with junk fees, slashing quality, jacking up prices over and over, and firing everyone who was good at their jobs. He is a master enshittifier, an enshittification ninja.

Krause has an unerring instinct for making people miserable while making money. He oversaw the merger of Citrix and VMWare, creating a ghastly company called The Cloud Software Group, which sold remote working tools. Despite this, of his first official acts was to order all of his employees to stop working remotely. But then, after forcing his workers to drag their butts into work, move back across the country, etc, he reversed himself because he figured out he could sell off all of the company's office space for a tidy profit.

Krause canceled employee benefits, like thank you days for managers who pulled a lot of unpaid overtime, or bonuses for workers who upgraded their credentials. He also ended the company's practice of handing out swag as small gifts to workers, and then stiffed the company that made the swag, wontpaying a $437,574.97 invoice for all the tchotchkes the company had ordered. That's not the only supplier Krause stiffed: FinLync, a fintech company with a three-year contract with Krause's company, also had to sue to get paid.

Krause's isn't a canny operator who roots out waste: he's a guy who tears out all the wiring and then grudgingly restores the minimum needed to keep the machine running (no wonder Musk loves him, this is the Twitter playbook). As Tkacik reports, Krause fucked up the customer service and reliability systems that served Citrix's extremely large, corporate customers – the giant businesses that cut huge monthly checks to Citrix, whose CIOs received daily sales calls from his competitors.

Workers who serviced these customers, like disabled Air Force veteran David Morgan, who worked with big public agencies, were fired on one hour's notice, just before their stock options vested. The giant public agency customers he'd serviced later called him to complain that the only people they could get on the phone were subcontractors in Indian call centers who lacked the knowledge and authority to resolve their problems.

Last month, Citrix fired all of its customer support engineers. Citrix's military customers are being illegally routed to offshore customer support teams who are prohibited from working with the US military.

Citrix/VMWare isn't an exception. The carnage at these companies is indistinguishable from the wreck Krause made of Broadcom. In all these cases, Krause was parachuted in by private equity bosses, and he destroyed something useful to extract a giant, one-time profit, leaving behind a husk that no longer provides value to its customers or its employees.

This is the DOGE playbook. It's all about plunder: take something that was patiently, carefully built up over generations and burn it to the ground, warming yourself in the pyre, leaving nothing behind but ash. This is what private equity plunderers have been doing to the world's "advanced" economies since the Reagan years. They did it to airlines, family restaurants, funeral homes, dog groomers, toy stores, pharma, palliative care, dialysis, hospital beds, groceries, cars, and the internet.

Trump's a plunderer. He was elected by the plunderer class – like the crypto bros who want to run wild, transforming workers' carefully shepherded retirement savings into useless shitcoins, while the crypto bros run off with their perfectly cromulent "fiat" money. Musk is the apotheosis of this mindset, a guy who claims credit for other peoples' productive and useful businesses, replacing real engineering with financial engineering. Musk and Krause, they're like two peas in a pod.

That's why – according to anonymous DOGE employees cited by Tckacik – DOGE managers are hired for their capacity for cruelty: "The criteria for DOGE is how many you have fired, how much you enjoy firing people, and how little you care about the impact on peoples well being…No wonder Tom Krause was tapped for this. He’s their dream employee!"

The fact that Krause isn't well known outside of plunderer circles is absolutely a feature for him, not a bug. Scammers like Krause want to be admitted to polite society. This is why the Sacklers – the opioid crime family that kicked off the Oxy pandemic that's murdered more than 800,000 Americans so far – were so aggressive about keeping their association with their family business, Purdue Pharma, a secret. The Sacklers only wanted to be associated with the art galleries and museums they put their names over, and their lawyers threatened journalists for writing about their lives as billionaire drug pushers (I got one of those threats).

There's plenty of good reasons to be anonymous – if you're a whistleblower, say. But if you ever encounter a corporate executive who insists on anonymity, that's a wild danger sign. Take Pixsy, the scam "copyleft trolls" whose business depends on baiting people into making small errors when using images licensed under very early versions of the Creative Common licenses, and then threatening to sue them unless they pay hundreds or thousands of dollars:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

Kain Jones, the CEO of Pixsy, tried to threaten me under the EU's GDPR for revealing the names of the scammer on his payroll who sent me a legal threat, and the executive who ran the scam for his business (I say he tried to threaten me because I helped lobby for the GDPR and I know for a fact that this isn't a GDPR violation):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

These people understand that they are in the business of ripping people off, causing them grave and wholly unjust financial injury. They value their secrecy because they are in the business of making strangers righteously furious, and they understand that one of these strangers might just show up in their lives someday to confront them about their transgressions.

This is why Unitedhealthcare freaked out so hard about Luigi Mangione's assassination of CEO Brian Thompson – that's not how the game is supposed to be played. The people who sit in on executive row, destroying your lives, are supposed to be wholly insulated from the consequences of their actions. You're not supposed to know who they are, you're not supposed to be able to find them – of course.

But even more importantly, you're not supposed to be angry at them. They pose as mere software agents in an immortal colony organism called a Limited Liability Corporation, bound by the iron law of shareholder supremacy to destroy your life while getting very, very rich. It's not supposed to be personal. That's why Unitedhealthcare is threatening to sue a doctor who was yanked out of surgery on a cancer patient to be berated by a UHC rep for ordering a hospital stay for her patient:

https://gizmodo.com/unitedhealthcare-is-mad-about-in-luigi-we-trust-comments-under-a-doctors-viral-post-2000560543

UHC is angry that this surgeon, Austin's Dr Elisabeth Potter, went Tiktok-viral with her true story of how how chaotic and depraved and uncaring UHC is. UHC execs fear that Mangione made it personal, that he obliterated the accountability sink of the corporation and put the blame squarely where it belongs – on the (mostly) men at the top who make this call.

This is a point Adam Conover made in his latest Factually podcast, where he interviewed Propublica's T Christian Miller and Patrick Rucker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_5tDXRw8kg

Miller and Rucker published a blockbuster investigative report into Cigna's Evocore, a secret company that offers claims-denials as a service to America's biggest health insurers:

https://www.propublica.org/article/evicore-health-insurance-denials-cigna-unitedhealthcare-aetna-prior-authorizations

If you're the CEO of a health insurance company and you don't like how much you're paying out for MRIs or cancer treatment, you tell Evocore (which processes all your claim authorizations) and they turn a virtual dial that starts to reduce the number of MRIs your customers are allowed to have. This dial increases the likelihood that a claim or pre-authorization will be denied, which, in turn, makes doctors less willing to order them (even if they're medically necessary) and makes patients more likely to pay for them out of pocket.

Towards the end of the conversation, Miller and Rucker talk about how the rank-and-file people at an insurer don't get involved with the industry to murder people in order to enrich their shareholders. They genuinely want to help people. But executive row is different: those very wealthy people do believe their job is to kill people to save money, and get richer. Those people are personally to blame for the systemic problem. They are the ones who design and operate the system.

That's why naming the people who are personally responsible for these immoral, vicious acts is so important. That's why it's important that Wired and Propublica are unmasking the "pubescent sovereignty pickpockets" who are raiding the federal government under Krause's leadership:

https://projects.propublica.org/elon-musk-doge-tracker/

These people are committing grave crimes against the nation and its people. They should be known for this. It should follow them for the rest of their lives. It should be the lead in their obituaries. People who are introduced to them at parties should have a flash of recognition, hastily end the handshake, then turn on their heels and race to the bathroom to scrub their hands. For the rest of their lives.

Naming these people isn't enough to stop the plunder, but it helps. Yesterday, Marko Elez, the 25 year old avowed "eugenicist" who wanted to "normalize Indian hate" and could not be "[paid] to marry outside of my ethnicity," was shown the door. He's off the job. For the rest of his life, he will be the broccoli-haired brownshirt who got fired for his asinine, racist shitposting:

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/06/nx-s1-5289337/elon-musk-doge-treasury

After Krause's identity as the chief wrecker at DOGE was revealed, the brilliant Anna Merlan (author of Republic of Lies, the best book on conspiratorialism), wrote that "Now the whole country gets the experience of what it’s like when private equity buys the place you work":

https://bsky.app/profile/annamerlan.bsky.social/post/3lhepjkudcs2t

That's exactly it. We are witnessing a private equity-style plunder of the entire US government – of the USA itself. No one is better poised to write about this than Tkacik, because no one has private equity's number like Tkacik does:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

Ironically, all this came down just as Trump announced that he was going to finally get rid of private equity's scammiest trick, the "carried interest" loophole that lets PE bosses (and, to a lesser extent, hedge fund managers) avoid billions in personal taxes:

https://archive.is/yKhvD

"Carried interest" has nothing to do with the interest rate – it's a law that was designed for 16th century sea captains who had an "interest" in the cargo they "carried":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/29/writers-must-be-paid/#carried-interest

Trump campaigned on killing this loophole in 2017, but Congress stopped him, after a lobbying blitz by the looter industry. It's possible that he genuinely wants to get rid of the carried interest loophole – he's nothing if not idiosyncratic, as the residents of Greenland can attest:

https://prospect.org/world/2025-02-07-letter-between-friendly-nations/

Even if he succeeds, looters and the "investor class" will get a huge giveaway under Trump, in the form of more tax giveaways and the dismantling of labor and environmental regulation. But it's far more likely that he won't succeed. Rather – as Yves Smith writes for Naked Capitalism – he'll do what he did with the Canada and Mexico tariffs: make a tiny, unimportant change and then lie and say he had done something revolutionary:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/is-trump-serious-about-trying-to-close-the-private-equity-carried-interest-loophole.html

This has been a shitty month, and it's not gonna get better for a while. On my dark days, I worry that it won't get better during my lifetime. But at least we have people like Tkacik to chronicle it, explain it, put it in context. She's amazing, a whirlwind. The same day that her report on Krause dropped, the Prospect published another must-read piece by her, digging deep into Alex Jones's convoluted bankruptcy gambit:

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-02-06-crisis-actors-alex-jones-bankruptcy/

It lays bare the wild world of elite bankruptcy court, another critical conduit for protecting the immoral rich from their victims. The fact that Tkacik can explain both Krause and the elite bankruptcy system on the same day is beyond impressive.

We've got a lot of work ahead of ourselves. The people in charge of this system – whose names you must learn and never forget – aren't going to go easily. But at least we know who they are. We know what they're doing. We know how the scam works. It's not a flurry of incomprehensible actions – it's a playbook that killed Red Lobster, Toys R Us, and Sears. We don't have to follow that playbook.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/07/broccoli-hair-brownshirts/#shameless